Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Definitions, Please

I struggled with Beck’s analysis of risk and risk
distribution for several reason, the most pertinent being that there was a disconnect
in the piece, either in the structure of the argument or in the lack of
definitive terminology, that led to increased abstraction and ambiguity and
ultimately increased my overall skepticism of these vague impending destructive
forces that he speaks of, etc. etc. For example, Beck continuously referenced
modernization, but more so from a distance, reluctantly addressing agents and
causality. He says that scientific and environmental discussion often avoid the
human, separating and/or isolating the discussion from the social/personal, but
his analysis did a similar thing in that sense for me. Although he looks at
civilization and recognizes causal interpretation as necessary in preventing
overarching, umbrella statements, that conversation came much too late. Another
way I found Beck difficult was that he used traditional terms like wealth and
knowledge in an untraditional sense that made working through them almost
impossible because one definition fit a certain context and didn’t necessarily
pertain to a context that followed. In the way that Beck suggests the
definition of risk has moved away from individual pursuits towards universal
hazards/effects, changing over time, he doesn’t really pin point how wealth has
changed as well, not to mention how politics complicates his theories all
together.

There were, however, two quotes I found really fascinating:

“Scientific rationality
without social rationality remains empty,
but social rationality without scientific rationality remains blind.” (30) à
This seems simple and clear and yet I still don’t really understand it. How
are “empty” and “blind” operating here? And then also looking again at
rationality would be useful. Can rationality be substituted for
justification or something similar and still give these statement weight?

“Everyone is cause and effect, and thus non-cause.” (33) à
Suggests that power is negated as a result of societal noise. Relates to
averaging effect? Is this related to quasi-causality?